Pathways
by TechnoFusion
Summary: A darker retelling of the Pokemon saga. After fate takes a twisted turn for him, twelve-year-old Ash turns to underground cockfighting for money with a new mutant species called "Pokemon", which seem to enjoy the pain. However, along with glory can come deadly enemies. Minor bits of Ash/Misty, Brock/Misty. Rated T for mature themes and violence. (On hiatus.)
1. ARC 1: Beginning

_The year is 2039._

_Very few people are still living in homes. The unemployment rate is at 92 percent. The suicide rate per day is 8,000. Ten years ago today, the economy suffered a major crash, and despite the best efforts, never made itself back up._

_Scientists predict humanity will be wiped out within ten years unless something majorly turns around. At the same time, reports of a secret cockfighting ring for money are coming in; while all this could just be a big hoax, people are certainly interested._

* * *

Ash approached the door to his house. He pulled the key off his raggedy old bag and placed in the door, which caused it to make a loud creek.

"Mom, I'm home!" Ash shouted. He was twelve years old, and went to a small school in Tokyo; very few children made it in because the schoolhouse had been downsized so much only one hundred kids could be accepted.

Ash somehow was one of the lucky ones. His mom had a job which kept the lights on and let him to go to school. Though he didn't have television, Internet, or radio (to be honest, no one did, as no one had managed to keep these things running through the economy crash). He had rice and beans for dinner every night with his mother, particularly because they were cheap. Sometimes it was the only meal he had that day, as the school couldn't afford to provide lunches most of the time.

His main outfit was a red hat, blue jacket with white collar, jeans, and black and white sneakers. They were starting to get beat up, but Ash tried his best to keep him together, as he knew he probably wouldn't be able to get anymore for a long time.

And his most prized possession with his bike - which was actually his father's old bike, before the economy crashed, and before he...

_Gulp. _Ash felt a lump in his throat as memories flooded back to his head, but tried his best to brush them off. He walked down the hall of his house, trying to find his mother.

"Mom? You here?"

Where could she be? At the grocery store, maybe? No - they had plenty of rice and beans, enough to be stocked for an entire month. What would she be out for?

"Mooooom?" Ash continued. He looked in her room. Nothing except her main (and only) outfit - a blue dress.

Now he was really confused. Mom wasn't at the house...and she was out somewhere naked? Ash blushed at a brief off-color thought he had with those implications.

The living room? Nope.

The dining room? Zip.

His room? Nada.

There was nowhere else Ash could think to look, except for the bathroom. As Ash approached the bathroom, he noticed the door was cracked open a bit, and he hesitated for a second.

_What if she's naked in here? That'd be embarrassing, _Ash thought to himself. _I'll just take a quick peek inside, and if she's naked, shut the door real fast._

Ash slowly began to open the door, enough to notice she wasn't on the toilet.

He opened the door a bit further, slowly coming closer to the bathtub...

_SLAM!_

Ash quickly slammed the door, starting to hyperventilate. He saw something there - some sort of red, by the bathtub...no, it couldn't be...

He knew he had to open the door again and find out.

"Come on, man up, Ash!" Ash scolded himself, slapping himself in the face. "Ow."

With that, Ash slowly began to open the door again, hoping that maybe what he was seeing was an illusion...

* * *

A dark shade of red painted the bathtub. It was overflowing, pouring out into a puddle on the floor. A cheap razor sat by the side of the bathtub - and inside of the bathtub, Ash could see his mother's head poking out.

She was sideways, most of her body covered in the red fluid...no, he couldn't keep calling it that, Ash knew well what the fluid was...he just didn't want to accept it. Her eyes were shut tightly, and Ash knew it wasn't just a nap.

Looking down, Ash saw his mother's wrists were painted red, with deep marks representing what she had done to herself. Ash screamed in horror after the image slowly began to make sense in his head.

"No...no, not again..." Ash cried out, falling to the ground sobbing. This had to be a dream. A really bad dream.

There was no way for Ash to get help. The police didn't really exist anymore since nobody had a phone, and unless you were lucky enough to be neighbors with a police officer you were out of luck. Which explained the drastic increased rate in crime since the crash.

Finally, Ash noticed what appeared to be a piece of paper sitting on the side of the bathtub, most of it painted red. He only hoped it'd still be legible as he picked it up.

On one side was one of Ash's homework assignments.

The other side had a message written out darkly in pencil:

_SORRY._

Ash dropped the paper and held onto the bathtub as he was feeling faint, but quickly pulled his hand off, not wanting to touch the scene. He never thought he'd have to see something like this again. With a quick turn, he vomited into the sink, falling over on the floor after doing so.

He picked himself up and ran off. Where was he going? He didn't know. He knew this one runaway who was lucky enough to get employed after doing so. Maybe he'd fall under that category?

No. He had too much luck in his life, and clearly now it was all backfiring on him. Nowhere to go, nowhere to run.

Ash's feet decided to think for themselves and carry him wherever he could run. His brain was turned off, trusting his feet to take him to the path of his destiny.

Well, he managed to get somewhere like that.

* * *

**NEXT CHAPTER PREVIEW:**

**_"Misty? I haven't seen you since third grade!"_  
**

**Ash reunites with an old runaway friend and becomes involved in a secret underground cockfighting ring involving a mutant species known as "Pokémon". Can Ash get away from his morals for cash?**

* * *

**A/N: How was the first chapter of _Pathways? _This chapter was pretty dark, but next chapter will have its lighthearted moments. However, be aware this is a darker spinoff of Pokemon, meaning it will go into more mature territory later on. No smut or lemons, but some pretty heavy stuff. Not recommended for readers under thirteen (though they are certainly allowed to read if they feel they can handle the content; I was reading _Latias' Journey _a bit younger then that.)**

**If you liked this chapter, have constructive criticism, an idea, or anything else, please leave a review. You'd also really make my day if you R&R'ed, but I know this is a pretty big section so I don't know how much recognition I'll get here.**


	2. ARC 1: A Chance Encounter

Ash was scared.

To be honest with himself, he was a bit of a mama's boy - as he felt he was required to be as being one of the only boys who still had an alive mama until a few moments ago.

Being alone by himself in a forest like this was completely insane for him to be doing.

Everything was insane. There was no way he'd be able to make it on his own...

After a long time running into no particular direction, Ash stopped to catch his breath by a tree. While he was by the tree, he heard a very deep and demanding voice coming from near by.

_"Give it up, girly!"_

Out of curiosity, Ash came closer to the voice. Two tall, muscular guys were clearly blocking a young girl from moving by holding her against a tree. Ash couldn't see the girl's face, only her backside; she had orange hair and was wearing a yellow top with jean shorts. That sounded a bit familiar to Ash to some reason, but there was no name clicking in his head for the girl at the moment.

"Come on, honey, you're just asking for it wearing something like that." The man to the right said. "It gives me chills just thinking about the money we could make off of you."

"So why don't you be a good girl, service us, and we'll let you go, instead of selling you?" The man to the left said, hanging onto the girl by her hair as she continued to struggle.

"I'll scream!" The girl warned. Both of the men let out a loud laugh.

"You're gonna scream?" The man to the left asked, still laughing. "It's a bit hard to scream when I hold you down, honey. Besides, even if you do scream, there's no one in this forest who's going to hear you."

"You said she's thirteen, right?" The man to the right asked the other guy, feeling the girl's face and sniffing her hair. "That's a good age. I can't wait for her to become one of our slaves."

"Now, now, we don't know for sure she's gonna be a slave. If she starts cooperating and does what we asked her to, we might let her go."

"_Wait a second." _Ash interrupted, coming closer to the men, who turned around to him with a puzzled look in their eyes. What on earth was he _doing_? This wasn't like him.

"Huh? Who the hell are you?" The man to the left asked, leaving the other man to hold Misty down and coming closer to Ash.

"My name's Ash Ketchum." Ash stated boldly, still not entirely sure what he was doing. "And I don't appreciate the way you're treating that girl."

"How's it any of your business? I'd suggest you keep walking, kid, unless you want this to get ugly."

"Maybe I do want this to get ugly."

By this point Ash was convinced he had completely gone crazy, but he didn't care. It felt good to be standing up for this girl.

"What do you think, Onizuka?" The man to the left asked - well, he was no longer at the left, as he was now all up in Ash's face. "Should I break this brat and steal his Pokemon?"

His _what_? Was this guy speaking in code?

"What's a Pokemon?" Ash interrupted before the other man could answer. The two men looked at him shocked.

"What are you doing in this forest if you don't even know what a Pokemon is?" The man yelled, grabbing Ash by the shirt. "Stupid brat, go home to your mama!"

With that, the man dropped Ash to the ground, leaving his knee a bit scraped up as he stood up again.

"You're useless to us now." Onizuka said. "You can have your girlfriend. But if we ever see you in this forest again, we're going to give you a good pounding."

"Dude, don't say that." The other guy interrupted.

"Huh? Why not?"

"Because it kinda sounds like you mean..."

The other guy whispered to Onizuka, whose face suddenly became very red and defensive.

"I didn't mean it like that, sicko!" Onizuka yelled to Ash and the girl, who had never said anything in the first place. "We mean we're gonna kill the both of you!"

The two men stormed off, pushing the girl onto the ground. As she fell, Ash got a glimpse at her face for the first time. He couldn't believe what he saw.

"Misty?"

Ash came closer to the girl curiously. She looked at him for a second before something finally went off in her head.

"Ash, is that you?" Misty asked.

"Misty? I haven't seen you since first grade!" Ash yelled excitedly to the girl. "It's been such a long time..."

He remembered the day Misty left. No one really talked about it much, she just went off and left one day. Her parents were struggling and arguing, her dad was always on "business trips", and they were struggling to meet ends meet just like everyone else.

One day Misty just got fed up and walked out. Her mother was too intoxicated to notice she had left until the next morning, and by then the girl was far gone. Many people thought she had died of starvation or gotten eaten by rabid creatures in the forest.

But to Ash, Misty looked fine - a bit taller, with some nice curves. He had to admit she was cute, but not in that way...at least, he kept telling his hormones he didn't think of her in that way as he examined her slender body.

"So, what are you doing out here in the forest?" Misty asked. "You finally get fed up with society?"

"Well, um, actually..." Ash started, feeling a lump in his throat again. "I found my mother in the bathtub. She was, um, dead."

The color out of Misty's face drained almost immediately after that.

"Oh my gosh, Ash..." Misty started. "I'm so sorry."

"I'm fine, really." Ash stated, though he really wasn't fine. He just didn't want to seem like a wimp in front of Misty. "I knew it was coming. We were really struggling, and my mom was at risk of getting fired. She had spent a lot of time crying about Dad recently. Anyways, after that, I ran off into the forest, not sure where I was going, and...well, here I am."

"So you don't know about the Pokemon?" Misty asked.

"Hm? What's a Pokemon?"

"You mean the public still hasn't found out what they're called yet? Amateurs..." Misty muttered with a chuckle, grabbing Ash's hand. "I gotta take you somewhere."

With that, Misty began running, still holding Ash's hand.

"Where are we going?" Ash asked.

"To see a certain someone." Misty said. "I don't suppose you've heard of a Professor Oak, have you?"

"Um, no..."

"Well, you're about to."

With that, Misty continued dragging the confused Ash to a whole new pathway in life.

* * *

**NEXT CHAPTER PREVIEW:**

_**"With the bloody action going on in front of me, my morals immediately started questioning themselves. Was this really going to be my new life?"**_

**Ash officially gets introduced to Professor Oak and learns about the gambling ring of Pokemon, the mutant species which is built around pain.**

* * *

**A/N: I hope I did a bit better on this second chapter now that I'm really feeling inspired for this story. As usual, R&R highly appreciated if you've got some praise or constructive criticism you'd like to give yours truly.**


	3. ARC 1: A New Life Begins

Ash was being dragged by his old classmate Misty into unfamiliar territory. Normally he'd be a bit frightened, but he had already had the fright of the lifetime. This was light compared to what he had gone thought in the last day.

Misty finally stopped dragging him as they stopped in front of a tall building which appeared to be some sort of lab.

"What are we here for?" Ash asked.

"You'll get it in a minute." Misty replied with a smile, continuing to drag Ash even though he was more then capable of walking on his own. She opened the door and inside a man, as if he was waiting for them, was standing in front of it.

The man had grey hair and was wearing a white lab coat with a red shirt underneath. He had a pipe dangling from his mouth, which he removed to smile at the pair. Ash assumed this was the Professor Oak that Misty had mentioned before.

"Ah, Misty. I see you've brought someone with you." Professor Oak said.

"This is Ash. He's kinda had a lot of screwed up stuff happen in the past day and isn't sure where to go now, so I brought him to you." Misty said, pushing Ash towards the professor.

Ash was a bit embarrassed that Misty had told him so much information, but the man seemed unfazed.

"What exactly happened to you, Ash?" Professor Oak asked. "Don't go into too much detail if you don't want to."

"Well, um...I sort of, um...found my mom dead." Ash said. After a day it was still a struggle to get the words out.

"And it was a suicide, wasn't it?"

Ash's eyes went wide. "How did you know that?"

The professor chuckled. "Lucky guess. I've been told I'm rather talented at reading people. So, Ash...am I correct in assuming your father is also deceased?"

"Yes, sir."

The professor chuckled. "You don't have to call me _sir_. Just call me Professor Oak."

"Yes, Professor Oak." Ash corrected himself.

"Where was I? Oh, yes...your father's deceased. And you're only twelve years of age, right? Not old enough to get a traditional job, and even those pay dirt. There's nowhere you can really go...except for here, of course."

Professor Oak started to walk further into the lab, with Ash and Misty following behind him.

"I must warn you, Ash." Professor Oak said, looking him directly in the eye. "What you're about to see might be a bit overwhelming at first."

He walked towards a dark area with a blanket over it, hand ready to yank off the blanket. "Do you think you can handle that?"

Ash nodded, and the professor removed the blanket. The professor was right to warn him; what he was seeing was a bit overwhelming.

There were three creatures in front of him. One of them was blue with a turtle shell on its back. A white label underneath its cage read _"SQUIRTLE"_.

Another one was green with a seed on its back. The label underneath read _"BULBASAUR"_.

Finally, one was yellow and furry with rosy red cheeks and a tail almost shaped like a lightning bolt. The label underneath it read _"PIKACHU".__  
_

The difference between the last one labeled and the others as that the others automatically started snapping angrily at him at his presence. The yellow one simply sat silent, staring him in the eye.

"Sorry that you've got the reject Pokemon to choose from." Professor Oak said. "You're a tad bit late to the party."

Ash was confused by the word "Pokemon" at first, until Professor Oak explained.

"The Pokemon are a rare species that love to fight." Professor Oak stated. "It's in their nature. They live to tear each other up. Most of the time they are self-healing, except for major injuries, in which you'll have to come here for one of our nurses to treat it."

"So, this is like cockfighting?" Ash asked.

"I wouldn't say that," Professor Oak started. "Dogs, cats, those kinds of animals, it's not in their nature to fight. I don't think one could domesticate a Pokemon, though most once they get a good sniff of you know what to attack and what not to."

"I'm still confused." Ash said. "How is this supposed to help me?"

Professor Oak let out a chuckle. "Here comes the good part. There's hundreds of people, they've got a hidden passion for watching these things fight - they bet thousands of yen on which Pokemon will win. Our fights are done entirely underground, so this has mainly spread through word-of-mouth."

"At the beginner's level, you receive one thousand yen a month." Misty explained. "However, as you and your Pokemon start winning battles, you'll slowly start going up in your payment. I believe the maximum is eight thousand yen a month."

Eight thousand yen a month sounded pretty nice to Ash.

"If you're wondering how we receive this money..." Professor Oak started. "_Don't. _That's for me and a few other higher-ups to know and for you to never likely find out."

Ash didn't ask any more questions, though he still had a bit of curiosity.

"So, which Pokemon will it be?" Professor Oak asked.

He looked at the choices in front of him. The Squirtle and Bulbasaur were both still growling at him, but the Pikachu was calm.

Ash felt something...weird as he looked at the Pikachu. Almost like some sort of connection. He lifted his finger and pointed at its cage.

"I think I'll have that one." Ash said.

"Ah, Pikachu." Professor Oak said. He went over to two buttons: _RELEASE ONE _and _RELEASE ALL. _Unfortunately, he pressed the _RELEASE ALL _button.

_"Oh, son of a..."_

The three Pokemon immediately started to charge at each other. Squirtle went for Bulbasaur's ear, drawing blood as he did so. Pikachu sent a lightning strike down Squirtle as he cried out in pain.

With the bloody action going on in front of me, Ash's morals immediately started questioning themselves.

_Is this really going to be my new life?, _Ash thought to himself. After that, he decided to silence his inner morality for a while. He _needed _money.

Professor Oak grabbed the Pokemon, all biting at his hand, and put two of them back in their cages, and set Pikachu on the ground next to Ash.

"Sorry you had to see that." Professor Oak said. "Pikachu, this is Ash. He'll be your new trainer."

Pikachu didn't move a muscle towards Ash. The Pokemon simply stared at him with dark black eyes.

"He's a bit slow." Professor Oak warned Ash. "He's got quite a bite though."

Ash looked at the other cages. Bulbasaur's ear was already starting to look better. However, there was a large pool of green blood in front of the cages.

"Well, now all that's left is for you to find somebody to fight!" Misty said excitedly. "This is gonna be _fun!"_

_Fun_? Sounded more like _brutal _to Ash.

* * *

**NEXT CHAPTER PREVIEW:**

_**"Word around the block is there's a new kid in the game..."**_

**A proper introduction to Team Rocket, who have hidden tricks up their sleeve and know something Professor Oak doesn't want them to know.**

* * *

**A/N: Hope everyone enjoyed chapter 3. As usual, R&R highly appreciated! Or any type of review, really. Even flames make me feel good, because I feel honored that a troll would even bother clicking on my story to mix up various expletives and threats towards me.**

**Actually, no, please don't flame. I'd like to know how I'm doing on this. See you all next chapter!**


	4. ARC 1: The Dark Room

It was an old, dark, vacant building. Formerly owned by a major corporation before the economy crash. No one ever demolished the building. No one ever tried to repurchase the building. And so it just sat there.

People reported noises coming from it late at night, but no one ever bothered to look and assumed the people claiming these things were crazy.

So of course, it was perfect for Team Rocket to have their meetings. Well, it was more like _Partner _Rocket; there were only two members, Jessie and James. But they were always on the lookout for someone as twisted as them. The right person just hadn't jumped out at them yet.

Another night, more planning. James lit a cigar and sat beside Jessie with a smirk on his face.

"I'm assuming you've heard by now." James stated, taking a puff off the cigar.

"About what was seen at Oak's today?" Jessie asked.

"Yep. So another kid's getting involved in this? Haha, if only they knew."

"If _anyone _knew the things about Oak that we did," Jessie started. "we could get him locked up for a real long time."

"But we can't do that." James replied. "After all, if we can...eh, work something out with Oak, we could easily forget what he did."

"I don't want to work something out. I want _all _the money he has. It's not fair that we're all broke and yet..."

"Shh. I know, there's no need to go on a rant right now. After all, eventually this will all be over. All those rotten kids will be eating out of our hands, or dead. And Oak will be a problem no more."

"I can't wait." Jessie muttered to herself, suddenly getting louder afterwards. "It sickens me to let him have the glory for even one second! Especially considering we were the ones who..."

"Shh. It's alright, dear. You get too riled up at times. After all, we've got a little something no one else does."

Just as James finished his sentence, a loud growl came from the other room.

"Looks like it's time to go check on our little something." Jessie said with a smile.

The two of them walked off together into another room.

The first noticeable detail about the room was the large cage. While it was too dark to make out much detail as to what was in there, it was certainly big. Its teeth almost looked like fangs, and from the sounds of the growls it was making it was hungry. Pokemon also growled sometimes when they were hungry, but not to the extent _this _was.

The second noticeable detail about the room was what was handcuffed on one side of the room. Two men with bloodshot eyes and duct tape over their mouths, their eyes suddenly going wide as Jessie and James entered the room.

"How are our little slaves?" James teased, taking the cigar out of his mouth after one last drag. However, instead of simply throwing it on the ground, he burnt himself on the leg with it, making a little sigh of pleasure as he did so. He then stubbed it out on the ground.

Jessie took the tape off of the men's mouths. One of the men began to scream out with a familiar voice.

_"You can't do this to us!" _The voice screamed. Jessie simply smirked at the man.

"Oh, can we not, Onizuka?" Jessie asked with mischief in her voice. "What exactly are you going to do about it?"

The other man had a much different tone to his voice; one of fright.

_"Please! Don't kill us!" _The man shouted. _"Please...I give up, I give..."_

"Give? Give me what?" Jessie asked with a smirk, coming closer to the other man.

"_No, I wanna give...I wanna give you..."_

"You said you were gonna give me something, right? Well, spit it out. I'm right here. What the hell are you gonna give me?"

"_Please! I'm serious! I wanna give..."__  
_

"Would you quit your mindless babbling?" Jessie spat at him. "You gonna give it to me or not?"

The man fell silent.

"That's exactly what I thought." Jessie stated, turning towards James. "James, release the beast."

"Gladly." James replied.

The two men began weeping for their lives, but it was too late. James released the beast, quickly getting out of the way along with Jessie as the beast lunged towards the two men. After a loud chomp, blood squirted onto the cage as one of the men screamed in horror. There were sounds of slicing and chomping around Jessie and James as the blood continued to spill; soon enough, the other man's screams became simply whimpers, followed by dead silence.

James stared at the bloody sight with delight in his eyes. Jessie simply smirked at him.

"You like this, don't you?" Jessie asked James, teasing him by dipping her finger in the blood. "You're a real twisted freak, you know that?"

James playfully slapped her on the arm, and then put his arm around her shoulder. "Oh, Jessie. We're _both _twisted freaks, and don't you forget it."_  
_

* * *

**A/N: Sorry for the long delay; going to try to get chapters out faster now. Probably not multiple times a week like I was hoping for, but at least one to two times a week. As usual, R&R highly appreciated! If you liked this chapter, please leave a review. If you didn't, then feel free to give me a bit of constructive criticism about what you didn't like. I don't bite...maybe. **

**See you all next time!**


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